<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>a life with love (is a life that's been lived) by deathncte</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22610359">a life with love (is a life that's been lived)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathncte/pseuds/deathncte'>deathncte</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>1917 (Movie 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Be gentle, M/M, heavily inspired by ed sheeran, i can not stop thinking abt tom, leave me alone im sad, tom's a registered dumb bitch, uhmmmm first ao3 fic wahoo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 17:26:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,065</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22610359</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathncte/pseuds/deathncte</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>tom blake reflects on a life barely lived.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joseph Blake &amp; Tom Blake, Tom Blake &amp; William Schofield, Tom Blake/William Schofield</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>68</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>a life with love (is a life that's been lived)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Tom wasn’t sure on most things at nineteen, however, as he stared death in the eyes, he realized that there was one thing he was absolutely certain about.  While his life was never the most glamorous, or the most honest, his regrets were few and far between.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>i. pain</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At the age of six, Tom wasn’t sure his legs had ever carried him as fast as they were.  The spring morning’s cold wind hit his face like his teacher’s usual disciplinary strikes.  Despite this, he wore a grin that could melt the ice patches still littering the orchard from winter.  Joseph’s laughter only urged him to go faster, trying desperately to catch up with his older brother.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Maybe he was going a bit too fast.  Maybe he should have been paying more attention to where he was going, rather than how pretty the newly blossomed trees looked.  Either way, he couldn’t catch himself as he slipped on ice and went tumbling. It was silly of him, but all he could think of as he went flying down the hill, passing Joseph, was how hard his mother would have to scrub to get the grass stain out of his clothes.  It wasn’t until his elbow hit the rock at the end of the hill that he felt pain.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His previously white shirt was stained green, brown, and now red.  He could hear Joseph yelling for their mother, but all he seemed to be able to do was clutch his elbow and wail.  Of course, it all turned out well- one trip into town for the doctor and he was fine, sitting in their small kitchen/dining room eating a homemade scone.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>ii. anger</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tom wasn’t known for being a troublesome child- sure, he might’ve been slightly airheaded when it came to remembering his mother’s list of groceries, but at ten years old he had m u c h more important things to be doing than going to the baker’s for two loaves.  And yet, despite his . . . niceness, and very much not troublesomeness, there he sat, being lectured by his mother while Joseph stood there so </span>
  <em>
    <span>smug</span>
  </em>
  <span>, his eyes giving him that I-Told-You-So look, a bag of ice pressed against his bruising eye.  The coppery taste of blood was still on his tongue from his busted lip, despite his attempts at stopping the bleeding.  He always had bled easy.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It hadn’t been his fault, he swore it.  He just couldn’t have stopped himself from marching up to three known bullies while they were mercilessly verbally abusing some poor new kid in town.  The kid’s family had recently immigrated from Poland and still had a heavy accent- it still wasn’t a reason to tease him as much as the other boys were.  Of course, Tom had been greatly outnumbered, not to mention they were all much taller and three years older than him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The entire time his mother was lecturing him, he was sending Joseph a withering glare.  At fifteen, his older brother clearly thought he knew absolutely everything there was to know, and Tom personally couldn’t disagree more. The brothers argued often- their mother usually remedied it by sending Tom into the orchard and Joseph into the barn when they got too rowdy.</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>The orchard gave him some comfort- the angsts of puberty were no match against the soft petals of the Sargent cherry trees.  The flowers’ bittersweet aroma could melt away the foulest of moods, and the next time he saw his brother after a few moments of leaning against the sturdy trunk he would be all smiles once more.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>iii. attraction</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In his fourteen years of living, Tom had never felt this way before, especially not over a guy.  Every time he walked into town and saw the baker’s son, his mouth went dry, his palms grew clammy, and his face started to redden.  It had gotten to the point where he would rather lie to his mother than go into town. He knew it was wrong, especially with Joseph being in the army nowadays, leaving him and his mother alone to the chores, but the aching pressure in his chest every time he saw the boy made him feel ill.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The way the boy smiled at him every time he bought bread- it was wrong, so terribly, awfully, wrong.  The nights Tom spent wide awake, staring at the ceiling as he thought and thought and thought until he couldn’t think anymore and fell into a restless slumber full of the baker’s son’s green eyes, his curly hair, his calloused hands, his lips.  It was torture. He would never speak of it. Not in letters, not by words, not to himself, not to anyone.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>iv. love</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When Tom first arrived at his newly assigned regiment’s camp, he didn’t know what to expect.  The boot camp had toughened him up enough- he was no longer affected by the scolding that came from his superiors.  Unfortunately, he hadn’t been assigned to his brother’s regiment- he had heard that Lieutenant Blake only led the best men.  Lieutenant Blake declined to comment on that in his letters, especially after Tom refused to call him by his first name.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>On his first day in camp, he was assigned a bunk.  It was in a nasty, shit smelling trench and the mattress wasn’t much different from the one he had on the floor back home.  His bunkmate was a man named William Schofield- not someone he was familiar with, and he hadn’t met him yet. Apparently, the man was delivering a message to the lieutenant further down the trench.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The first hour of being at camp was a blur- a quick tour, a rifle shoved into his arms, rules laid out.  He hardly had time to register the bright blue eyes of his mysterious bunkmate. The man gave him a once over and a grimace, but Tom hardly noticed his attitude, instead of concerning himself with committing the man’s face to memory.  He hardly realized that he had begun to speak.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.  I’m Thomas Blake- call me Tom.” He snapped out of his stupor, giving a grin that proved infectious enough to crack the man’s cold exterior.  Finally, a smile out of him- one that made his stomach turn.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I said, my name is William Schofield, and you’re standing in the way of the bunks.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>uhhhhh it got really choppy towards the end because i got sleepy and wrote this in an hour sorry :(</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>